Upon the death of a family member, surviving loved ones must make a number of decisions in a relatively short time. Too often a bereaved loved one feels pressured and overwhelmed by memorial preparations. Exemplary memorial decisions encompass ceremony preferences, financial arrangements, casket or urn selections, etc. Other considerations relate to transportation, floral displays, as well as “personalizing” products and services. For instance, clients routinely customize materials, finishes, corner adornments and interiors of caskets to honor loved ones. Likewise, “memorial items” or keepsakes may be tastefully incorporated into aspects of a memorial service. While such services and personal touches facilitate the healing processes, they often represent difficult choices for bereaved loved ones.
In consideration of the above, the trend of preplanning one's own funeral has become increasingly common. Preplanning ensures that the wishes of a planner are recorded and fulfilled. The practice is especially desirable in discordant family scenarios where children may pointedly disagree as to memorial details. Thus, death care providers expend great resources to develop methods and products to encourage and facilitate preplanning.
Funeral plans and preplans are conventionally created in an “arrangement conference.” In such a conference, a funeral director meets with a pre-planner or surviving loved one of the deceased. The conference is typically held in the funeral home of the funeral director, who describes and discusses various funeral products, services and costs. The funeral director may use visual aids, such as a product catalog, product display board and a casket selection room to illustrate the products available to the customer. Similar catalogs may be employed to give a sense for the services offered by a funeral.
While many family members and pre-planners prefer the structure and personal attention of an arrangement conference, others are uncomfortable meeting a funeral director in person. Some clients may feel pressured in a personal interview, or even concerned that they are wasting a director's time with indecisiveness. The demanding schedules of other clients do not allow for adequate time to meet with a funeral director or research arrangements thoroughly. Still other clients struggle with the initial decision of choosing a funeral home suited to meet their unique needs.
Some death care providers attempt to meet client insecurities and busy schedules by tapping into Internet resources. Commercial Internet applications have become ubiquitous in nearly every other industry, and funerary providers likewise recognize advantages inherent to the technology. For instance, digitized listings of funeral products and services are displayed on Internet web pages maintained by funeral suppliers and providers. Such web pages allow browsers limited exposure to select products and other aspects of a memorial process. Web pages can familiarize clients with select products and services prior to an arrangement conference. However, while they can facilitate the planning process, conventional websites are not comprehensive or integrated and still require clients to attend personal arrangement conferences.
Consequently, what is needed is a method of arranging a memorial in a manner that allows for more convenient, thoughtful and comprehensive planning than has heretofore been possible.